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Jayajit Chakraborty

Jayajit Chakraborty is a Professor and Mellichamp Chair in Racial Environmental Justice at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He recently served as a member of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board and inaugural EPA Environmental Justice Science Committee, and chaired the EPA EJScreen Review Panel.

About

About

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Email: jchakrab@ucsb.edu

Office: 4520 Bren Hall, UC Santa Barbara

Websitehttps://bren.ucsb.edu/people/jayajit-chakraborty

Research & teaching interests: 

●Environmental justice ●Climate justice ●Vulnerability to hazards and disasters ●Racial/ethnic disparities ●Disability studies ●Health equity ●Food security ●GIScience ●Spatial analysis ●Quantitative Methods

#1 in Environmental Hazards

#2 in Environmental Inequality

#3 in Urban Environments

 

  • Included in the prestigious Stanford-Elsevier ranking of the world’s most cited researchers and those who are in the top 2% in their academic subfield, based on both career-long citation data and citations from the latest year (2023).

Jayajit Chakraborty is a Professor and Mellichamp Chair in Racial Environmental Justice at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara. He was previously a Professor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology and the Founding Director of the Socio-Environmental & Geospatial Analysis Lab at the University of Texas, El Paso. He has also been a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida) and a visiting scholar in the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). He has a M.S. in Urban & Regional Planning and Ph.D. in Geography, both from the University of Iowa.

 

Dr. Chakraborty currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Committee on Utilizing Advanced Environmental Health and Geospatial Data and Technologies to Inform Community Investment and coauthored a NASEM study report on Constructing Valid Geospatial Tools for Environmental Justice. He is also serving as a member of the Community Health & Environmental Research Initiatives Research Committee of the Health Effects Institute (HEI). Dr. Chakraborty recently served as member of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board, Work Group for Review of Science Supporting EPA Decisions, and the inaugural EPA Environmental Justice Science Committee. He also chaired the Scientific Review Panel for the EPA's EJScreen Mapping & Screening Tool and served as a lead discussant on the EPA Environmental Justice Science & Analysis Review Panel. He currently serves on the editorial board of several journals, including Environmental Justice and Environment, Development & Sustainability.

As a broadly trained social scientist, Dr. Chakraborty’s research interests encompass a wide range of concerns related to the social dimensions of environmental and climate change, with an emphasis on environmental justice and community vulnerability to hazards and disasters. His scholarship has examined environmental and social inequalities at multiple geographic scales in the US, US-Mexico border, Australia, and India. His research utilizes a variety of methods, including applications of GIS and spatial statistical techniques, as well as social surveys and mixed methods approaches.

 

Dr. Chakraborty has published more than 4 books and 120 articles/chapters, including The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice and a chapter for the US Government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). He has been a principal/co-principal investigator for over 30 sponsored projects, which include grants awarded by the US EPA, US National Science Foundation (NSF), US Department of Transportation, US Department of Treasury, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, American Association of Geographers, Australian Research Council, and other agencies. Dr. Chakraborty was also a recipient of the University of Texas System Faculty STARs Award and the NSF Geospatial Fellowship for Advancing COVID-19 Research and Education.

Recent News

Recent News

Latest Pubs

Latest Publications

  • Wholeben M, Cheon H, Goodson A, Chakraborty J, Salazar G, and McCreary R, 2025. “Understanding Interpersonal Violence Incidence in a U.S.–Mexico Border Community: A Geospatial Approach” Journal of Forensic Science. https://doi.org/10.1097/jfn.0000000000000532.

  • Chakraborty J, 2025. “Heatwave Frequency and Disability Status: Thermal Inequities in the U.S. South” Disability and Health Journal, 18(1), 101665; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2024.101665

  • Miller H, Tate E, Anenberg, S, Bennett L, Chakraborty J, et al. (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine), 2024. Constructing Valid Geospatial Tools for Environmental Justice. The National Academies Press: Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.17226/27317.

  • Guo C, Ge E, Lee S, Lu Y, Bassill N P, Zhang N, Zhang W, Lu Y, Hu Y, Chakraborty J, Emeny R T, and Zhang K, 2024. “Impact of Heat on Emergency Hospital Admission in Texas: Geographic and Racial/Ethnic Disparities” Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, 34, 927–934. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-023-00590-6.

  • Chakraborty J, 2024. “Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Distribution of Heatwave Frequency and Expected Economic Losses in the US” Scientific Reports, 14, 17058; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-67760-w.

  • Stein PJS, Stein MAS, Groce N, Kett M, Akyeampong EK, P Alford WP, Chakraborty J, et al. 2024. "Advancing Disability-Inclusive Climate Research and Action, Climate Justice, and Climate-Resilient Development, The Lancet Planetary Health, 8, e242-e255. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00024-X.

  • Chakraborty J, 2024. “Using Local Indicators of Spatial Association to Analyze the Environmental Justice Implications of Ambient Air Pollution in the United States” Environmental Justice, https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2023.0017.

  • Chakraborty J, Grineski S E, Collins T W, and Aun J J, 2024. “Disparities in Adverse Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic by Disability Status in Metropolitan Texas, Journal of Public Health, 46(1), e60-e64. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdad209.

  • Chu E K, Fry M M, Chakraborty J, Cheong S-M, Clavin C, Coffman M, Hondula D M, Hsu D, Jennings V L, Keenan J M, Kosmal A, Muñoz-Erickson T A, and Jelks N T O. 2023. “Chapter 12: Built Environment, Urban Systems, and Cities” In Crimmins, A R, Avery C W, Easterling D R, Kunkel K E, Stewart B C, and Maycock, T K (eds.) Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). U.S. Global Change Research Program: Washington, https://doi.org/10.7930/NCA5.2023.CH12.

  • Chakraborty J, Collins T W, Flores A, and Grineski S W, 2023. “Hurricanes, Floods, and Environmental Inequality” In Long M A, Lynch M J, and Stretesky P B (eds.) Handbook of Inequality and the Environment. Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, UK; 490-504. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781800881136/book-part-9781800881136-41.xml

  • Grineski S E, Scott M, Collins T W, Chakraborty J, and Ramos K, 2023. “Anxiety and Depression after Winter Storm Uri: Cascading Disasters and Mental Health Inequities” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 96, 103933; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103933.

  • Chakraborty J, Aun J J, and Schober G S, 2023.  “Assessing the Relationship between Emergency Food Assistance and Social Vulnerability during the COVID-19 Pandemic” Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 16, 259 - 276. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36059605/

  • Chakraborty J, Collins T W, and Grineski S E, 2023. “Disability and Subsidized Housing Residency: The Adverse Impacts of Winter Storm Uri in Metropolitan Texas” Disability and Health Journal, 16(2), 101403; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2022.101403.

  • Chakraborty J, and Aun J J, 2023. “Social Inequities in Exposure to Traffic-Related Air and Noise Pollution at Public Schools in Texas” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(7), 5308; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20075308.

  • Grineski S E, Collins T W, Chakraborty J, Goodwin E, Aun J J, and Ramos K, 2023. “Social Disparities in Power and Piped Water Outages among Metropolitan Texans after Winter Storm Uri” American Journal of Public Health, 113(1), 30-34. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36356281/

  • Chakraborty J, 2023. “COVID-19 and People with Disabilities: Social Inequalities in the Distribution of Pandemic Vulnerability” In Carey A C, Green S E, and Mauldin L (eds.) Disability in the Time of Pandemic (Research in Social Science and Disability). Emerald Publishing Limited: Bingley, UK; 15-29. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S1479-354720230000013002/full/html.

Jayajit Chakraborty, Ph.D.

jchakrab@ucsb.edu

Professor and Mellichamp Chair in Racial Environmental Justice

Jayajit webpage
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